The paper studies a two-sector economy with investments in human and physical capital and imperfect labor markets. Workers and firms endogenously select the sector they are active in, and choose the amount of their investments. To enter the high-skill sector, workers must pay a fixed cost that we interpret as direct cost of education. The economy is characterized by two different pecuniary externalities. Given the distribution of the agents across sectors, at equilibrium, in each sector there is underinvestment in both human and physical capital, due to non-contractibility of investments. A second pecuniary externality is induced by the self-selection of the agents in the two sectors. When total factor productivities are sufficiently diverse, subsidies to labor income in the low skill sector and fixed taxes on the direct costs of education increase total surplus, while subsidies to labor income in the high skill sector can actually reduce it.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number
14772.
Find related papers by JEL classification: J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.: